SPEAKERS

BIO

Cornelis Eldering (Niels) is Head of Office within the Commercialisation Department at the European Space Agency. Together with his team, he built the largest space entrepreneurial network in the world, i.e. ESA's Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs) Network.

Today, he leads the office responsible for the ESA BIC network and ESA's Partnership Initiative for Commercialisation (EPIC).



ESA currently has 37 ESA BIC hubs across its member states and supported over 2000 startups over the years. The primary aim of the ESA BICs is to provide support to entrepreneurs who wish to exploit space-based solutions.

The approach has been adopted for similar technology transfer and incubation activities by e.g. STFC, CERN, Fraunhofer, Czech Invest.